


where you invest your love, you invest your life

by klainelynch



Series: a far cry from the world we thought we’d inherit [3]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Aang is a good dad, Air Nomads (Avatar), Air Temple Island, Gen, Writer's Month 2020, the gaang's kids get to be kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25966003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klainelynch/pseuds/klainelynch
Summary: Ch. 1— Aang teaches Tenzin how to make fruit pies and be a part of the Air NomadsCh. 2- A mystery on Air Temple Island reaches a surprising yet inevitable conclusion
Relationships: Aang & Tenzin (Avatar)
Series: a far cry from the world we thought we’d inherit [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859692
Comments: 16
Kudos: 26
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer’s month [prompt](https://writersmonth.tumblr.com/prompts) #18 Cooking.

The kitchen on Air Temple Island never seemed to quiet down; even in between the actual cooking, there were always a few Acolytes preparing for the next meal or cleaning up the mess from the last one. Aang's own family was known to pop in from time to time, but they didn't take the bulk of the meal preparation. For a while, that hadn't sat right with Aang and Katara. Letting someone else cook for them felt like a luxury they didn’t have a right to, but Yee-Li pointed out that they were each serving the world in their own ways, and the Acolytes themselves had asked to serve in this way.

Still, it was nice to get in the kitchen every so often. Today’s airbending lesson  _ had _ to take place in there, after all.

Tenzin had been studying his airbending forms for five years now, and he had mastered almost a third of the thirty-six airbending tiers. Aang was incredibly proud of him, but he worried about the pressure that Tenzin seemed to place upon himself. Every time he mastered another tier, he would ask Aang when he himself had mastered that particular one. There were only so many ways to say that it wasn't helpful to compare yourself to someone else. The truth was, Aang had mastered almost all of the tiers by the time he was Tenzin's age. He didn't master the final one until after he created the air scooter, but by that time, he had already done enough to earn his arrows.

Airbenders weren’t meant to learn by themselves.

Aang wouldn’t trade his family for anything, but there were times that he missed his temple so much that it would ache. Air nomads were meant to live in community. They were meant to be together and help one another, so that as one person struggled with discipline, another could help him out, and as she struggled to connect to her spiritual side, he could in turn help guide the necessary pathways to spiritual enlightenment.

He was no longer the last Airbender, but he still felt loneliness creep in at times. His worst fear was that Tenzin’s training would suffer due to his insecurities, and it was in those moments that he would double down on his preparation just to make sure he hadn’t forgotten something the next generation of Airbenders needed to know.

Bumi and Kya had lost interest in Air Nomad culture around this age, but Aang hoped that they might return to it someday. Tenzin, on the other hand, couldn't get enough. He wanted to know everything about every topic, and while Aang was happy to guide him, he worried that his youngest son prioritized his identity as an Airbender over every other part of himself.

"So will stirring this batter for three minutes make me a better Airbender?"

Tenzin was  _ covered _ in flour— it was all over his arms, and his shirt, and even in his hair— but his face was as serious as it always was. Aang hoped his son would see the fun side of the Air Nomads by making a fruit pie, but this was about the fifth or sixth time that Tenzin had asked some variation of this question.

"No Tenzin, it's just the way I learned how to do it."

"Oh, ok," he said, but he looked like he didn't believe him. Tenzin wanted  _ everything _ to connect back to Airbending in some way.

Aang grabbed the fruit from the icebox and started chopping it into small pieces. Tenzin was still stirring the batter like his life depended on getting it just right.

"That batter looks great. Do you want to keep working on the filling while I pour the batter?"

Tenzin took the knife, but cut so slowly that Aang was able to fill both pie tins before he finished with his first piece of fruit. He noticed Aang watching him and his brow furrowed as he said, "I want to make sure that I cut each one perfectly."

Aang took Tenzin's hand and showed him a better way to hold the knife. "When Bumi and I first made fruit pies, he figured out that cutting like this let him dice the fruit quicker." He smiled, remembering the way that Bumi had eaten so much of the fruit as he worked that they had to make a second trip out to the orchard just to get enough for the filling.

Now Tenzin looked really confused. "But he's not an Airbender, Father. Why would he need to know how to make fruit pies like the Air Nomads?"

Aang felt a pit form in his stomach and looked down at his youngest child. He had a good heart, and Aang knew that he wasn’t trying to hurt his brother, but that’s exactly what that sort of thinking would do. This had to be handled delicately.

“Let’s take a break for a minute, okay?”

As Aang led Tenzin to a nearby bench, he grabbed a towel so they could wipe off their hands, and looked around to see who might be able to overhear this conversation. Yee-Li was making bread, but the kneading seemed to be giving her trouble. She was scowling as she added yet more flour to her hands and tried to shape the mass of dough into a soft ball. There was no danger in her paying attention to them, and no one else was around.

“When I first got Appa, I was allowed to travel to any new location that I wanted,” he began. “It was a lot of fun, but it was more than that. I was instructed to learn about different cultures and meet new people. I made friends in every nation, and some of those friendships lasted for a very long time. Your brother is named for one of those friends.”

“I know,” Tenzin said in a very small voice. It seemed to have finally dawned on him that he might be in trouble, which didn’t happen to him all that often.

“But the other part of my travels was to let the other nations know what it meant to be part of the Air Nomads. We were pretty different from the other nations, and there were some people who tried to use those differences against us. It’s easy to judge someone you don’t know. The monks and nuns knew the best way to help others understand our culture was to just be ourselves as we met new people.”

Three times, Aang had shared the story of the Air Nomad Genocide, and the telling hadn’t gotten any easier despite that practice. He and Katara both agreed that their children needed to know what had happened, but they also knew that sharing the basic facts at a young age wouldn’t be the last time they would have to think about it. There had been moments throughout the years when Aang saw Bumi or Kya realize just how much their dad had lost, and Aang felt a new level of pain at having to help his children work through his own trauma.

“The Air Nomads valued freedom and individuality. They tried to find the balance between helping an individual reach their full potential and making sure that each member of a community did their part to help. It wasn’t always easy, and things were far from perfect, but those values are what made them special, and they are the values I’ve tried to instill in all of my children.” He grabbed Tenzin’s hands and made sure to look him in the eye. “You have an incredible gift, and I am so proud of how hard you’ve worked in your airbending training, but I don’t ever want you to think that you’re better than your brother or sister because of it. You are  _ all  _ my children, and if I’m part of the Air Nomads, then so is all of my family.”

Tenzin burst into tears and cried on Aang’s shoulder for a bit. He didn’t get emotional as often as the rest of his family, but when he did, it was like all of the pent-up emotions were released at once. Aang wrapped his arms around his son and murmured that it was okay.

When he finally calmed down, he asked, “Do I need to apologize to Bumi?”

Aang kissed him on top of the head. He could tell Tenzin was embarrassed and sorry for what he had said, and there was no need to go any further with it.

“I’m the only one who heard, and I know how sorry you are. Your brother loves you, and knows that you love him. That’s good enough for me.”

Tenzin nodded and wiped his nose on the towel that they had used to wipe off their hands.

“Now, how about we finish these pies? I’ve never taught someone else how to use airbending to make the filling rise, and I think you’ll be great at it.”

An hour later, Aang was happy to discover that he was right, and later that night, Tenzin offered the first slice of fruit pie to his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a _monster_ to write. I’ve known that I wanted to write some version of Tenzin and this prompt ever since I saw the list, but it went through so many different versions and rewrites before ultimately I wrote the ending you see here the day I posted it because I’m back at work and life is now chaotic.
> 
> I’m happy to put this into the world, but I’m not completely satisfied with how this turned out. Tenzin is hard for me to write. He’s so serious and I imagine that he shaped his entire identity around his airbending abilities, which doesn’t always make for an interesting read. And yet I love this character so much! I rewatched Korra over the weekend because I wanted to bump it into the Top 10 on Netflix, and I was struck again by how much of a rock Tenzin is, not only for the entire Air Nation throughout seasons 3 & 4, but also for his family, even as he’s working through his own stuff. In case it was unclear, I imagine that Tenzin was a very good student who had to work hard to be successful, and he struggled with anxiety when he compared himself to his father, a literal airbending prodigy.
> 
> So this fic was hard, but ultimately worth it. It’s been easier to write his siblings, but I wanted to make sure that I got a Tenzin fic into this series so that I can go back and write more for him once I figure his voice out. If someone more talented wants to take a shot at this plot, I would love to read it :)
> 
> Fic title is a lyric from “Awake My Soul” by Mumford & Sons. This might be too in the weeds, but I named it and then realized that the series title, as well as fic titles for Bumi and Kya, all came from Rush lyrics, so Tenzin is once again the odd one out in his family.
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [klainelynch](https://klainelynch.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer’s month [prompt](https://writersmonth.tumblr.com/prompts) #11 Bunnies. I started writing it during the month, but it’s obviously WAY late

The first hint of mischief was the destruction in the garden. Aang didn’t tend to it personally, but even he could notice when an entire section looked like it had been the victim of an airbending novice trying to get the hang of their glider. In a few rows, brown dirt practically outnumbered the leafy greens. Bewildered, he asked the head gardener what animal might have caused it.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out all day,” Sonam said. Plunging her shovel into the ground, she sighed and looked back at the ransacked garden. 

She was young, just a few years older than Bumi, who had left for the United Forces only last year, but she had transformed the agriculture of the island in the three years since she had joined the Air Acolytes. Her gardening techniques had elevated the vegetarian cuisine of the island to a level that even Sokka, during his last visit, had said that he could have _survived_ on. If he absolutely _had_ to, he insisted as he filled his bowl with a second helping.

Aang rubbed his chin and took a second look around. The greens had caught his attention, but they weren’t the only plants in disarray. The carrots weren’t ready to be picked for another few weeks, but half a row was missing, and whatever animal took them didn’t seem to care that they had trampled the row of dirt as they left.

“We noticed those around the same time as the greens,” Sonam said. “The culprit seems to have a preference, but no sophistication in the collection. We’re keeping an eye on that part of the garden so we can get to the bottom of this mess.”

…

The second hint was the bedding.

Katara was scheduled to give a lecture at the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Center on her latest breakthroughs in healing, and Aang was supposed to have his monthly council meeting; a sudden blizzard had shut down everything in the city, and neither one was complaining. They found themselves under a thick blanket on the couch, talking about everything and nothing. It had been far too long since they’d simply had an evening to themselves.

As Aang readjusted his arm around Katara, his hand caught on a hole near the edge of the blanket.

“I thought this one was pretty new?” he asked.

Katara turned her head and frowned when she saw the fraying hole that was almost big enough to stick several fingers through.

“It _is_ new. I just bought it at the market last year,” she said. “I wonder what could have made such a tear.”

“Moths?”

Katara scrunched up her nose at his guess.

“Maybe it’s _some_ sort of bug, but I’ve never seen moths do this kind of damage.”

Comfortable as he was, his curiosity was getting the better of him. He went down the hallway to the cupboard with the rest of their blankets. None of them had mysterious tears in them.

“Who used this one last?” he asked as he sat back down on the couch.

“I think Kya might have been the last one, when she watched Tenzin, Lin, and Su the other day. They made a blanket fort that took over the entire living room.”

Aang had to laugh at that. It would never cease to bring him warmth when he thought about how ordinary their children were allowed to be. It reminded him of his own upbringing, before he learned about being the avatar. Just last week, he had overheard snippets of a conversation between Kya and Tenzin as they played Pai Sho in the next room over, and he would have sworn it was the same argument that his friends Norbu and Tshering had had over a hundred years ago at the Southern Air Temple.

He meant to ask Kya about the blanket, but at some point he fell asleep on Katara’s shoulder, and by the time he ate breakfast with his daughter the next morning, the thought was a distant itch in his memory.

…

The third hint was less of a hint and more of a “Really, Avatar Aang, you’ve saved the world a dozen times, how have you not figured out this simple mystery by now?”

In fairness to him, Yakone’s trial _had_ been last week, so he’d been a _bit_ preoccupied with a bloodbending crime lord and hadn’t given much thought to the scattered odd signs around his home.

Tenzin was late for his morning meditation. That wasn’t like him. Even though Aang had been doing this for years, he still relished in the mornings when he could sleep in. He always appreciated the calming effects of the practice during and after meditating, but the getting up never got any easier. His son didn’t have that problem; in fact, Aang almost always joined Tenzin in the meditation hall.

So as Aang made his way to Tenzin’s room, flashes of potential disaster sprang into his mind. He wasn’t one to worry, but you could always count on Tenzin to be reliable, and if he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, then surely he was at least seriously ill, if not worse. 

The last thing Aang expected when he opened Tenzin’s door was to step in poop. It was small and immediately crumbled under his bare foot, but was still a gross surprise.

“Father!”

Aang looked up just in time to see Tenzin throw the blanket from the couch over a huge box at the foot of his bed, and things finally began clicking into place.

“Tenzin, what do you have there?”

“Nothing,” he said, and Aang didn’t need his seismic sense to tell that he was lying. Tenzin had definitely inherited his earnest nature and inability to lie from his mom.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re hiding, or are you going to make me look for myself?”

Tenzin’s face reddened slightly, but he bravely stepped in between Aang and the mysterious creature he’d hidden for at least a month.

“If I tell you, do you promise not to get mad?”

“I can’t guarantee you won’t get in trouble if you’ve hidden something that you shouldn’t have, but I promise I won’t be angry with you,” he said, trying to keep his face neutral. He was successful on that count until Tenzin slowly pulled the blanket back to reveal a lop-eared rabbit hopping furiously around its cage.

“You’re kidding me! I haven’t seen one of these in years,” he laughed, and immediately reached in to pick it up.

“She doesn’t like— oh,” Tenzin cocked his head. “I forgot you’re really good with animals. She hasn’t let me pick her up yet.”

Aang scratched the rabbit’s chin. “It’s all in the way you approach them. If you’re not nervous, then neither are they.” He never would have said so, but he suspected that his youngest was too timid to be particularly good with animals. The lemur incident from a few summers ago, which had ended in tears and scratched up arms, sprang to mind.

“Have you given her a name?”

“Bunny,” he said, and his face was so serious that it took everything in Aang’s power to keep a straight face.

“It’s a good name.”

“No one else knows about her— well Lin knows, but she promised not to tell— and I figured we would remember an easy name like that.”

He smiled. “That’s good thinking, Tenzin. Do you want to see if she’ll let you hold her now?”

His eyes lit up, but widened as Aang gently placed Bunny in his arms. “She’s heavier than I thought she would be. Must be all those carrots I’ve been feeding her.”

Aang couldn’t hold back his laughter at that, but Tenzin was smiling too. Talking things through always helped in his airbending lessons, and it seemed to help here too. He talked about how to keep your arms firm but not stiff, and where to place your hands, and how talking softly to an animal often calmed both you and the critter down. After a few minutes, Tenzin was relaxed enough to sit on his bed and stroke softly down Bunny’s back as he hummed a soft tune. Aang wasn’t sure how long it had been since his son had been so serene; it may have been before the discovery of his airbending, over half his lifetime ago.

“So can I keep her?”

He hated for the moment to end, but there was no way around it. Aang smiled and gently reached for Bunny so he could put her back in the box. 

“I think you already know the answer to that one. This house isn’t made for rabbits. They need a lot more room than we have here, and the food that comes from our garden is meant for people, not animals.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Tenzin sighed. “At least I got to take care of her for a little while.”

“But how about we find a petting zoo that would be willing to take her, and then you can visit her in a wide open space?”

“I think I’d like that.”

Still, something didn’t add up out of all of this. Bumi would have done something this reckless in a heartbeat, and he even could have seen Kya hiding an animal in her room for months before anyone else found out, but Tenzin? What could have caused his law-abiding son to break so many rules at once?

“Hey bud, where did you find Bunny anyway?”

The tranquil Tenzin of a few minutes ago was nowhere to be seen; he was all business as he said, “Down by the bison keep. Some hawks were chasing her, and I had to get her out of there. You taught me that Air Nomads believe all life is sacred, so it was my duty as an Airbender to protect her.”

Ah. There it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The image of stoic Tenzin mischievously hiding a bunny entered my brain the moment I read this prompt, but figuring out how to make that work within the confines of his rule-abiding nature was a fun puzzle. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [klainelynch](https://klainelynch.tumblr.com/)


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